‘Retribution’: Bay Area Lawmakers Slam $160 Million Loss in Federal Highway Funds

Bay Area members of the U.S. House Transportation Committee decried the Trump administration’s decision to withhold about $160 million for California highway safety as political retribution, and said the state must push back.

The U.S. Department of Transportation announced Wednesday it is denying the funds after a months-long dispute involving a clerical error in roughly 20,000 commercial driver’s licenses California issued to immigrants. The move represents the Trump administration’s latest financial penalty against the state.

On Thursday, the attorneys general of California and four other Democratic states sued to block another agency, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, from freezing billions of dollars for childcare and family assistance programs. HHS said the action was justified due to serious concerns of widespread fraud and misuse of taxpayer dollars, but the states countered that the agency has not provided enough evidence to support those claims.

“The Trump administration is using its power to harm states that stand up and say ‘No, we don’t like your policies,’” said Rep. John Garamendi, whose district represents parts of Contra Costa and Solano counties. “Clearly, it’s retribution — clearly, it’s political.”

States issue “non-domiciled” commercial licenses to noncitizens who are authorized to work but lack permanent residency. Applicants must also pass knowledge and skills tests to operate large vehicles such as semi-trailers and city buses. The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration regularly reviews the state-administered program.

California Department of Motor Vehicles officials said they’ve been working with the FMCSA to correct the clerical error, which produced licenses that expire at a different date than the driver’s work authorization records. The issue was first flagged by the federal agency last year.

But U.S. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said the highway safety funds are being pulled because California delayed revoking the disputed licenses at a previously agreed-upon date, while working on a fix.

The state had planned to cancel about 17,000 non-domiciled licenses on Jan. 5 under federal pressure, and an additional 2,700 in mid-February, without offering recourse for drivers to reapply. After truckers who faced losing their livelihoods sued the DMV last month, it announced a 60-day extension.

“Our demands were simple: follow the rules, revoke the unlawfully-issued licenses to dangerous foreign drivers, and fix the system so this never happens again,” Duffy said in a statement. “Gavin Newsom has failed to do so — putting the needs of illegal immigrants over the safety of the American people.”

Transportation experts doubt there is reliable evidence linking safety behind the wheel to immigration status. Commercial drivers with California licenses are involved in fatal crashes at a much lower rate than the national average, according to the DMV.

The expiration date errors involve around 3% of the approximately 700,000 total commercial driver’s licenses in the state.

“We strongly disagree with the federal government’s decision to withhold vital transportation funding from California,” Eva Spiegel, a DMV spokesperson, said in a statement. “Their action jeopardizes public safety because these funds are critical for maintaining and improving the roadways we all rely on every day.”

Duffy’s transportation department has sought to exclude an estimated 200,000 asylum seekers, refugees and other noncitizens working as commercial drivers nationwide from holding these licenses, arguing it would improve safety on the roads after high-profile truck crashes involving immigrant drivers. A court put that interim emergency rule on hold.

Many of the impacted drivers in California are Punjabi Sikh truckers, asylum seekers from India, who said they have valid work permits and clean driving records. The back and forth between the federal government and the state has left drivers and their families anxious and confused.

“The Sikh community should be outraged over being used as pawns in this petty score-settling exercise,” Rep. Jared Huffman, a North Bay Democrat, said in a statement. “California was fixing the clerical error, and the administration is using bogus legal authority to justify taking the whole state hostage.”

Last month, the DMV tried to start reissuing the contested licenses to eligible drivers, saying it had met all conditions to fix earlier problems, but paused after the plan was halted by the FMCSA, the state agency said. According to the DMV, federal officials agreed during a Dec. 18 meeting that it was reasonable to allow for more time to resolve their concerns.

Rep. Mark DeSaulnier, an East Bay Democrat, believes the latest rescission of federal transportation dollars is unlawful, partly because Congress had approved those grants. California is already behind in highway maintenance, he said, and losing safety funds could lead to more accidents and hurt the state’s economy.

“You can’t just remove a block grant that’s gone through a statutory process arbitrarily and without cause,” DeSaulnier said, adding that the state would fight the clawback, potentially in court. “But it’s such a waste of energy, and it hurts people.”

Other California members of the U.S. House Committee on Transportation & Infrastructure, such as Republican Reps. Vince Fong, of Bakersfield, and Kevin Kiley, whose district stretches along the California-Nevada border, declined to comment or did not immediately respond to a request for comment.